DOOH Advertising’s Top 3 Benefits (with real, creative brand case studies)

Any digital display you see in public is known as DOOH advertising or digital out-of-home advertising.

If you look around, you will find this almost everywhere you go. Stadiums, malls, airports, hospitals. 

The opposite of what static billboards are seen as today, digital billboards in this form of marketing may be the kind of novelty that marketers are looking for. 

The DOOH market was estimated to be worth $41.06 billion in 2020, and the neuron, a statistical website, predicts that it will continue to grow, reaching an estimated $50.42 billion by 2026.

Additional relevant statistics about visibility and DOOH can be found on the website.

Here are a few examples:

Consumers detect digital out-of-home advertising in 49 per cent of cases.

52 per cent of viewers pay attention to all street-level digital out-of-home advertisement

The top 3 benefits of DOOH advertisements

DOOH advertisements have several benefits because of their programmatic nature. 

1. Real-time messaging

2. Dynamic ads 

3. More audience engagement 

4. Real-time messaging 

A networked computer can make simple changes to digital outdoor advertisements. For instance, the commercials may alter depending on what is happening in the match if you are in Mumbai and India and Australia are playing in the Wankhede Stadium.

Every time Dhoni hits a six, there may be drumrolls, and when someone is out, there may be a sad emoji.

McDonald’s made a clever move.

People received a free MC flurry when the temperature reached the target they set on a DOOH that recorded the temperature.

Check out this link on how they did it! So creative!

Dynamic ads

Digital out-of-home advertising has just started to realize its capabilities and the ads can be changed with respect to a lot of parameters, like recognizing voice, temperature, facial expressions

Imagine getting something for free based on your facial expressions. And, on top of that, a yawn!

Douwe Egberts coffee created just that. 

They installed Digital out-of-home ads at airports, where people usually are jet-lagged and sleepy and many of them are yawning. 

The coffee brand asked its users to come in front of the digital billboard and yawn. The algorithm captured this yawn and there they got a free cup of steaming hot coffee

Check out this link to see what went down at the airport with their digital out-of-home ads

Douwe Egberts – Bye Bye Red Eye

Audience engagement

Engaging with our audience is something that we all want our brands to do, right? But, a lot of times, we don’t always get the results we want. 

The most important thing is to understand where your audience is because, in this case, the audience will be interacting with your advertisement ‘in person.’

Let’s take the example of the coffee ad mentioned above. People drink coffee to get energy and not fall asleep while working or studying. 

Now, if Douwe Egberts Coffee had decided to implant that same advertisement in a mall, it would not have been as effective right? 

They figured out exactly where people are sleepy the most (I would say company meetings if they’re boring. But we can’t advertise there anyways)

So they figured out the next best location, an airport. And their brand DOOH advertising campaign turned out to be successful.

Another example of a digital out-of-home advertisement that engaged with its audience is Coca-Cola. 

Coca-Cola created a drinkable advertisement that creates the illusion that you actually taste the campaign. Helping the audience enjoy a Coke Zero with the help of technology. 

Viewers see Coke Zero pouring into the screen of their smartphones, filling a glass, which ends up into an actual free Coke Zero that can be redeemed in big retail stores across the US.

Check out this link to see how it turned out. 

Coca-cola Creates First Ever Drinkable Advertising Campaign

If you pay attention to the details like we do, you will notice something similar in all the above ads that I shared as examples. 

“They all give away free stuff.”

The Mc Flurry, the Coffee, the Coca-Cola.

But, in turn, these brands received massive social media coverage for free, many people interacted with the brand’s DOOH advertising, people felt valued, and all in all, it was a huge win for all of them.

In conclusion, given the flexibility of what one can promote, how they can, or whether they can change it with a few clicks, digital out-of-home advertising is slowly taking the center stage in the world of offline marketing. 

And with platforms facilitating the easy purchase of DOOH ads, it is not surprising to see that many have predicted huge markets for DOOH ads in the future years. 

While we are on this topic, a common question might that you may have is:

Is DOOH better than OOH? 

The critical difference between the DOOH and OOH is the letter “D”, or the word digital. 

When you think of OOH ads, you immediately think of billboards. Something static. Now the major change is that digital out-of-home ads are dynamic, they are moving billboards, capturing the attention of viewers. 

The ads can be changed via a networked computer, and algorithms can be created to change the ads based on a person’s behaviour (a smile, or a yawn)

So, does this mean DOOH ads are better than OOH ads?

We would say yes in some cases. For example, if your marketing strategy requires a programmatic element to it, then DOOH ads may be the best as compared to OOH ads.

But, if your marketing strategy or campaign is simple, or if you’re a small-sized brand, then OOH ads are the best for you as they tend to give higher ROI with less investment.

Many retail businesses & e-commerce businesses tend to do OOH advertising as it has proven to generate good ROI. 

We recently published an article on how retail businesses can increase their walkins. Feel free to read the article.

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